This new lily plant originated as a seedling selected from a group of seedlings planted by me at Sandy, Oreg., with seeds resulting from my crossing the clonal cultivar `Peachblush` as the seed parent and the clonal cultivar `Gypsy` as the pollen parent. This crossing was done with the object of producing lilies in shades of pink and peach well suited for forcing for cut flower production out of season, heretofore unknown in the lily breeding art.
This particular seedling was selected for propagation because of its flowers being characterized by clear pink and cream-throated coloration with a deeper stripe of pink along the tepal midrib, a color pattern unique in this type of lily. This selected plant was asexually reproduced by me at Sandy, Oreg., and under my direction successive generations of this plant were produced by bulb scale propagation and by natural propagation from bulblets; and this extended propagation of the new plant has demonstrated that the novel and distinctive characteristics of this plant hold true, under asexual propagation, from generation to generation and appear to be firmly fixed.
Continued work with this new variety shows that it remains moderately tall and is not overly susceptible to bud abortion when forced into flower out of season as a cut flower plant. In addition, the clone possesses to a high degree the desirable characteristics of hybrid vigor, great hardiness, and disease resistance. Thus the plant possesses all of the desirable characteristics of excellence of form, color and habit and the clone has been found to be a vigorous and good grower and propagator as observed at Sandy, Oreg.
The plant is also well suited to forcing out of season when the bulbs are dug at the appropriate time and properly precooled; October-dug bulbs, properly precooled and potted in January, will flower under glass in western Oregon with no supplemental lighting and at moderate greenhouse temperatures in an average of seventy to eighty-five days.